Chapter 16
Sixteen
Being a werewolf had taught her— among other things—to ignore the past, live in the present, and not think too much about the future. It worked, too, as long as the present was bearable.
— PATRICIA brIGGS
Alice: Sorry to text you so early in the morning. I’m driving to Texas to do something for Aunt Sally.
Alice:Shoot. I hope your phone’s on do not disturb.
Alice:I’ll call you when I get there in nine hours, okay
Alice:I miss you already.
Alice:We should talk when you have a moment.
I could have kicked myself for not leaving my phone on. Alice had tried to reach me, and I’d failed to be there for her.
I didn’t see her text messages or the missed call until Thursday afternoon, when we’d wrapped up All-Purpose Animal Services business for the day. Atticus and I were on our way home from routing a raccoon from Mrs. Dillworthy’s garage.
I started with dadgummit and rapidly worked my way up to less polite words.
Fuck, my wolf prompted. That’s the word you’re looking for.
“What’s up?” Atticus slid me a concerned glance from the driver’s seat as he stepped on the gas, getting us away from Mrs. Dillworthy. She was a lovely lady, but nosy as hell. Shifting where she could see me would be bad.
“Shut up a second, okay?” I stabbed the button on my phone to play Alice’s voice mail.
“Hi, Ford. It’s me. Alice. Alice Aymes.” I snorted at that. She was the one and only Alice in my life. I would always know who she was.
“I made it to Texas, and I’m headed out to my hotel soon. I don’t know what my reception will be like, but it’ll take forty minutes to get there. If you have time to talk, call me?” She paused and cleared her throat. Her voice dipped. “I miss you.”
The second message was shorter, cutting in and out. “I’m on my way to the hotel. I have time to call now if you do?”
I couldn’t believe I had missed an opportunity to talk with Alice. Worse, I’d missed it to crawl around in Mrs. Dillworthy’s garage.
I should have kept my phone on me. I should have invested in a special ringtone for her so there would never be any question about my picking up or not.
There was no third message.
I was also well past the window in which Alice had indicated she was waiting for me to call, but I called her anyhow. My wolf and I needed to hear her voice.
Atticus hummed a bar of Dionne Warwick’s song about two ships passing in the night. He did not have Ms. Warwick’s vocal talent, nor did I appreciate the distraction.
Did Alice need me? Was this a general, vague missing of me, or did she have a specific and pressing need that I was failing to meet?
My heart about leaped out of my chest when she answered. “Hello?”
Missed her.
“It’s me. It’s Ford. I didn’t get your messages until now. I was working and my phone was off and…that’s not important. Are you okay? What’s happened? Do you need me there with you?”
Yes.We can shift, run, and be there in five, maybe ten hours.
This seemed optimistic to me, unless my wolf had recently developed superpowers that included locomotion at the speed of light. But I could get a plane ticket. Drive down there. Violate speed-related laws in multiple states.
Never mind that the Iron Wolves were waiting on me to do their test job and that I had my own plans for them. Those plans could and would wait if Alice needed me.
This was not practical, and I knew Atticus was giving me stink eye, but Alice was my priority. If she needed me, I would go. The Iron Wolves and their threats could go to hell.
Alice didn’t say anything for a moment. I wished I could see her face. I was about to suggest we switch to a video call when she spoke up.
“Thanks for calling me. I—I’m glad you did. I’m at a bank right now, so I can’t talk for long. We’re about to go into the vault, plus it might be really rude.”
I paused for a second, then asked, “Your Aunt Sally sent you to a bank in Texas?”
“She had some stuff here in a safety deposit box. She left me a key and everything. It’s full of papers. A journal.”
I wasn’t sure how close Alice had been to her auntie, but I was fiercely glad she had something of her left. I hoped there were good memories in that journal, stories Alice could treasure.
“Do you want to call me back later tonight? When you’re free and all?”
“Yes!” Alice’s unadorned and enthusiastic response made me smile. “I can totally do that. That’s a great idea. I’ll call you then.”
“I won’t turn my phone off again,” I promised.
“Thanks?” She sure sounded like she wanted to add something else, but the words didn’t seem to come to her.
Atticus helped fill up the long moment of silence by whistling again. Finally, Alice said, “I’ll talk to you later.”
I didn’t think that was what she’d really wanted to share with me, but she was at a bank and in the company of others. I was sure she didn’t want them all listening to her personal conversation. Fortunately, I had only Atticus with me, and he already knew I was gone on Alice.
“I miss you, Alice Aymes.”
“Me too,” she blurted out, like she hadn’t been sure I’d feel that way and had been wondering whether her feelings were premature or silly. I hated that she didn’t see herself the way I did, as special and worthy.
Tell her I miss her, my wolf demanded.
“My wolf says hello,” I added, feeling stupid. “He misses you, too.”
She laughed quietly. “It’s so weird, but I can’t wait to see both of you when I’m back.”
“There are too many states between us,” I said. “I want to be right there beside you, right now. If you need me to, I can get there by tomorrow.”
“No,” she said, sounding uncertain. “No, I’ve got this, and I won’t be here for long. This whole situation is a little weird, and it’s not a long-term kind of thing. I’ll be back soon.”
I did not like the sound of a little weird, but it was not a veiled plea for help. Or so it seemed. I was willing to be convinced otherwise and go running straight to Texas.
Let’s do it.
When we called later tonight, I decided, I would ask more questions, suss out the situation. If things felt off then, I’d fly out to be with her.
“Okay, talk to you tonight.”
“Yes. Please. Bye.”
There were other words that I almost said, but instead I echoed, “Bye.”
Then she was gone.
Atticus cursed quietly beside me. “What’s up?”
“Aunt Sally left Alice a to-do that took her to Texas. Something about a secret safety deposit box. She can’t come over tonight.”
“That’s a tragedy.”
I nodded, not paying him much mind because I was replaying my conversation with Alice in my head.
You should have tried for phone sex, my wolf growled.
Not with my brother in the car.
I did have some boundaries.
My wolf grumped in my head and snippets of dialogue flashed through my head. My wolf had a surprising talent for dirty talk, but I was certain Alice was not going to let me talk out my erotic plans for her body when she was inside a bank vault with suit-wearing strangers.
Bummer, my wolf snapped.
He wasn’t wrong.
“So…no eating her peach tonight?”
I glared at my twin. “First of all, she was bringing blackberry cobbler. And second of all, there will be no peach-eating for you, Atticus Hank.”
“No need to get upset with me, Ford Montgomery. It was an important, dessert-related question, that’s all. I simply needed to check before making alternative arrangements.”
When I did not cease my glaring, he shrugged. “The woman’s peach was delicious. You can’t be surprised I want more.”
“You don’t get her peach unless she says so.”
I ignored Atticus’s muttering and shifted my gaze back to the window. I was debating pulling up a travel website and checking plane ticket availability when I saw flashing police lights in the side-view mirror. A siren chirped, making Atticus tense in his seat.
“What the hell?” Atticus frowned fiercely into the rearview mirror. “Is that Alessandro?”
I nodded, gritting my teeth.
He’s ambushing us, my wolf complained. Coward.
“Stop the truck.” I sighed, massaging my temples. “We’ll play his game.”
I hated to admit that Alessandro was, in fact, a real law enforcement officer—and that he, therefore, had the ability to do certain things. Getting pulled over by an animal control cop was irritating, particularly since he could ticket us only for animal-related offenses. It was a good thing he didn’t know we were wolves, or he’d have locked us up in the animal cages he had in the back of his vehicle.
Cursing with gusto, Atticus pulled over carefully. There was not a whole lot of room on this mountain road, and part of me secretly hoped Alessandro would skid off the edge.
My secret hopes thwarted, Alessandro strode up to the driver’s side and shined his industrial-sized flashlight into the truck. Atticus squinted as the beam hit him full-on. It was light out, so the flashlight was another power play from Alessandro.
Let’s show him who’s the real authority here, my wolf growled.
“Which one of you is Ford?” he asked, bouncing the flashlight beam between our faces as if he was playing ping-pong. I hated him.
“You can’t pull us over because you want to say howdy, Alex,” Atticus said, keeping his tone friendly and even. “Not unless you’ve got a hot tip that we’ve got somebody in our trunk or you’ve got yourself a warrant.”
Personally, I thought giving Alessandro concrete ideas was a bad plan.
“And you would be Atticus,” Alessandro said, frowning a little at my twin. He shifted his gaze back to me, turning off his monster flashlight, then braced a shoulder against the truck, his beautiful hair flowing in the wind like he was modeling for a book cover. “Alice is out of town. Were you aware of that, Ford?”
I straightened in my seat, surprised that Alessandro had pulled us over to chat about the location of his third cousin twice removed.
“Yes. Although maybe you should ask her to share her location on her phone. It would be quicker than pulling us over.”
“Aunt Sally left her quite a legacy. Alice is cleaning out her safety deposit box in Texas.”
Atticus and I shared a look, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. Why on God’s green earth is this man telling us this? I was thinking the same question in stereo.
“Alice told me this. Like I said, I just spoke with her.”
Alessandro nodded, and I realized he was deliberately keeping his features neutral and his voice impassive.
Danger, my wolf piped up. He’s planning something, but we’ll kick his ass first. I liked my wolf’s plan, but I couldn’t put my finger on what Alessandro was up to.
A sense of certainty came over me. We needed to go. This would not end well.
“I appreciate the heads-up. We’ll be going now.” I beamed a start the truck, you jackass thought at Atticus.
“If you know about the safety box, then I guess you know about what was in it. Yeah?”
Don’t flinch.Had there been venomous reptiles in there? Was this an Indiana Jones thing where Alice had opened the box and daggers had flown out?
“I know all about it, sure. Let’s go, Atticus.”
Atticus started the truck, but Alessandro didn’t move. He kept himself draped over the window’s edge like he was a model on one of those game shows our momma had liked to watch.
“So then you know that Aunt Sally left her a ton of silver, plus a whole drive full of cryptocurrency? That she’s now swimming in money and will be leaving Moonlight Valley to start that dream business of hers?”
Atticus’s face barely twitched. My twin was good. I mimicked his stoic calm as I stared at Alice’s third cousin twice removed. Never mind that my heart was beating fit to burst and cold sweat was trickling down my spine.
Fear.
We don’t do fear, my wolf whined.
It was scared, too.
Atticus covered for me. “Like he said, Ford just ended a call with Alice. He knows exactly what is going on. And since I’d hate to accidentally run you over, officer, it would be great if you could step away from my vehicle.”
Alessandro frowned. He looked like he’d asked Santa for a pony for Christmas and awakened to find a juicer underneath the tree.
He stepped back reluctantly, and Atticus meticulously and with great attention to all of Tennessee’s traffic safety laws rolled up the window, started the truck, signaled, and got us back on the road at exactly the speed limit.
We drove away sedater than a mourner following the lead car in a funeral procession.
It was not likely that Alessandro had lied to me. Alice had shared the same bare-bones story—Texas, Aunt Sally, safety deposit box—and Alessandro had nothing to gain by making up a financial inheritance other than temporarily tormenting me. All I would have to do, however, was call Alice and his fabrications would be revealed.
So I didn’t think he was lying.
Which left the truth.
Alice had been texting and calling me all day, asking to talk.
We should talk when you have a moment.
I miss you.
“Dammit…” I snarled. My wolf howled silently inside me. Something sharp and vicious peeled back my ribs and stabbed my heart. It hurt so much, the pain radiating up, out, and into every inch of me. Was I having a heart attack? Was this what childbirth felt like?
“Did you know that Alice was planning on leaving Moonlight Valley?”
“Not yet she wasn’t,” I said roughly. My voice was thick with emotions I didn’t want. “She was saving up money and…”
And we were already running out of time.
We’d had only twelve months to begin with.
“Alessandro could have been lying,” Atticus said. He must have been turning the new information over in his head, working out how it fit in to what he already knew. “Alessandro hates us, and he’s angry that you’ve got it bad for his cousin.”
Alessandro’s severe dislike of me was true. He’d have hated on principle anyone who had dated Alice. Honestly, I felt much the same about the men who had come sniffing around after Mack.
“He’s not lying about her leaving. If she didn’t need a business loan, she’d be out of here tomorrow. She told me that on our first date.”
Atticus did not volunteer any more thoughts or opinions after that, for which I was grateful. Neither my wolf nor I wanted Alice to leave.
She had the money that was her ticket out of here. She would go. And I would never hold her back.
I’d agreed with Alice that we’d call tonight, but I’d had to consider some alterations. I needed to track down Deelie Sue and get her to agree to help my brothers and me with our Lucky Jansen problem, which meant that I should switch my phone off and let Alice go straight to voice mail.
I could not afford to be distracted, and I would not be able to think about anything or anyone but Alice if we talked.
We should fight, my wolf raged. This is ridiculous. She’s ours.
In this my wolf was wrong. Alice belonged to no one but herself, and I would not forcibly keep her here. It was not even my place to be mad at her. I didn’t get to be angry, not when I wanted to be her partner, her everything.
I was going to support her, no matter what.
We could bite her, my wolf suggested. Who wouldn’t want to be a wolf? Then she’d have to stay. It’s perfect!
And you remember what happened to Momma, I said. That was not a happy ending.
If I didn’t pick up, she’d text me. Or leave a voice mail. Possibly, I’d get an email.
In all the scenarios in which we communicated tonight, however, I assumed the content would be the same: she’d tell me that she was not returning to Moonlight Valley. It would be easier that way because I would not have a chance to lash out at her.
When the phone rang, however, I answered it.
Knew you couldn’t resist, my wolf said. Go for it. Convince her.
You make convincing sound dirty.
The wolf laughed.
“Ford?”
“Alice.”
She happy-sighed when I picked up, as if she hadn’t been one-hundred-percent convinced that I would. Maybe we’d developed boyfriend-girlfriend telepathy, like the connection I shared with Atticus? Before, when I’d thought there was every chance she’d come back to Moonlight Valley and to me, I’d have welcomed that change.
“It feels so good to hear your voice! I know it’s only been like a day and we talked earlier briefly so it’s not even really that, but it feels like an eternity. Or at least a dozen years. I miss you.”
She sighed again, followed by a snuffling noise that I told myself was not cute. I was such a liar. “Ford, I need to tell you something.”
“I’m listening.” This was like baring your throat to an alpha who had bested you in a challenge, waiting for his teeth to tear through your skin and end the fight. I knew I’d lost. I knew I didn’t deserve to win. I wondered whether knowing it was all over would be a relief or a torment.
But then she said, “Ford Boone, I love you.”
The teeth sprang away from my throat.
My wolf howled triumphantly.
I opened my mouth to say my line in the script I’d written in my head—that even if we were over and she was going, I would always value our friendship and wish her well—and then realized she’d switched plays on me.
I had not seen this coming.
“I love you and I’m in love with you, and I realize that we’re probably in the liminal stage of things, but I don’t see my feelings changing.
“And I know that this is not the sort of conversation one should have over the phone, but today’s been upsetting because I’ve learned some things about Aunt Sally and my family that came as a shock. And I so didn’t want to make that kind of mistake myself, the waiting-too-long kind of mistake.
“We haven’t been seeing each other for all that long, plus there’s the whole wolf thing, but we’ve been circling each other since childhood, and I think you’re the electron to my proton.
“All those arguments we had growing up, those were our firefly flashes. We were twinkling at each other, waiting for each other to notice. I might have thought you were grumpy and rude and more than a little mean, but I think I’ve also always loved you.”
Alice sniffed, her voice thickening. She was crying, I realized, my own eyes threatening to well up in response.
Don’t you cry too, the wolf growled. Be strong and bold. Tell her you’ll TAKE her. I ignored him.
Fuck, I didn’t want Alice to cry over me. I didn’t want her to cry at all. She deserved only happiness and good things, but there was no way for me to hold her or care for her, not when she was eight hundred miles and several states away.
Alice loved me.
Alice LOVED me.
That thought ricocheted around inside my head. I could not respond. I could not say it back, let her know that fuck, yes, I was her man and she was my mate and we belonged together.
Maybe Alessandro had been lying. Maybe Alice intended to stick it out here in Moonlight Valley and with me for the twelve months she’d promised me. But if she did have the money to go now, then I was the reason she was hanging around…
I was the one holding her back, forcing her to stick when she wanted to go.
I was as bad as my daddy, biting Momma and compelling her to be something and someone she had never signed up to be.
“I love you,” Alice said again. I think she would have said it all night. I closed my eyes, sucked in a breath, and told myself to do this right.
I could not say those words back to her, could not ask her to be my mate in every sense of the word. Could not bite her, claim her, love her any more than I already did.
I swallowed hard. My wolf growled, a softer whine, encouraging. He was starting to understand why I had resisted. I knew what I had to do.
“Alice, this is not the time. We’ll talk when you get back, okay?” I kept my voice steady and calm. I’m not upset at all. You did not just rock my world.
There was a small sniff from the other end, the sound of fabric being dragged over skin, and I almost showed her my throat. I almost caved, gave in, rolled over, and exposed my soft underbelly. I almost told her I loved her and she was my mate.
But all I had to do was consider what had happened to Momma, to imagine how Alice would feel if I forced her to stay in Moonlight Valley. She wouldn’t get her shot at being a Nashville businesswoman. I would be the anchor locking her in a place she’d never wanted to be.
She would come to hate me.
Momma had hated our daddy. He’d burst into her life, romanced and love-bombed her, and then become the millstone around her neck. He’d ignored her unless he wanted something from her, and he’d stolen her chance at living a bold, free life.
She’d loved us kids, but she hadn’t wanted to be a wolf. The wolf side of our lives had scared her.
Darrell had bitten her anyhow, and he’d all but killed her.
I would never do that to Alice.
“Sure,” she said finally. Her voice was a whisper. Sad. Unsure.
“Sure. Bye, Alice.”
She hung up without saying anything more.
That was it. We were done.
Sure, she’d come back to Moonlight Valley at some point, possibly in a few days or even a few years, but I had tossed her beautiful words and her heart back in her face.
My twelve-month plan had been stupid.
Alice wasn’t going to break my heart when she left town.
I was going to break hers.